“Let’s go first to this Sala, it is the most beautiful one,” the red-headed avatar told me.  

I use my mouse and keyboard to control my avatar to follow my guide roaming the CatVers, a virtual reality experience created by the Centre Blockchain de Catalunya (CBC). 

The Sala, or hall, leads to a 3-D replica of the Library of Ateneu in Barcelona, Spain. Established in 1859, it has played a fundamental role in preserving Catalan culture and language. 

“Let’s go up,” the guide tells me. 

I go up the grand stairs and inside the architectural icon, famous for its mix of Gothic and modern elements. I see paintings and sculptures of famous figures, architects, writers and intellectuals who initiated the Catalan Renaissance Movement. 

Catalonia is the semi-autonomous Northeastern part of Spain. It has a unique culture and a language that is the mother tongue of fewer than 10 million people in Europe. 

“These people deserve to have their space in the digital world, not to be forgotten,” the guide tells me, “and this is why we built the CatVers.” 

She is Vasilisa Marinchuk, the director of international relations at Catalonia’s Blockchain Center. 

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Marinchuk is Russian and has been visiting European countries since she was a child. After working in corporate management for several multinational companies, she settled in Spain and became a founding member of the Catalonia Blockchain Center.

“The center’s one simple mission is to foster the adoption of blockchain technology in Catalonia and position it as a blockchain hub,” she said.

The center is an umbrella organization that links the local government as well as private companies in the space. They all share a vision that if blockchain technology has a future in governance, Catalonia should be at its cutting edge. 

Marinchuk points out the sense of national pride in Catalonia and the fact that some of its citizens yearn for independence. It is only natural that in such a place, many people would root for decentralization and would like a sense of digital sovereignty where their culture prevails. 

“When you come from a big country, like me, you don’t notice these problems of representation,” Marinchuk said. “Everything is available in your language.”

Vasilisa Marinchuk

This is not the same for linguistic and cultural minorities. For example, the Catalan press rejoiced when Netflix decided last year to add Catalan subtitles to some international titles for the first time. 

I walk with Marinchuk across the Catalan metaverse and visit its rooms.  

“I remember when I was 10, I visited the downtown of a city in Italy, and all you see are local businesses,” she said. For better or worse, chain stores and global brands took over, and the stores are identical in every downtown in every city. 

In this secluded digital Metaverse, everything is in Catalan, and there is a virtual radio station where DJs can spin local music. It is possible to view the Catlan metaverse using a virtual-reality set for a better immersive experience. The animations, however, are still basic and reminiscent of 1990s video games. 

Marinchuk explains that this is a prototype for what is to come – a fully immersive metaverse designed with the Unity engine. The goal is also to introduce Catalan citizens to the metaverse, enable them to use blockchain technology to access virtual businesses and form decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs. 

The prototype is impressive and has earned recognition. CatVers won the 2022 Best Government Communication Innovations Award, given by the government of Sharjah UAE. 

But it’s a long road between the prototype and the future Marinchuk imagines. 

“A beautiful vision of the future is to have so many local metaverses, from Spain, Basque, Mexico, everywhere,” she said. “Where people can meet each other and get to know each other directly, with no limitations.”